Peace and the Barrel of the Gun in the Internationalist Women’s Movement, 1945–49

Abstract

Abstract In 1949, at a conference instigated by the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) held in Beijing, China, the Asian Women’s Conference solidified an anticolonial, antifascist, and antiracist theory for organizing women transnationally. This transnational feminist praxis drew its movement demands and strategies from the masses of women in anticolonial movements, both rural and urban poor women. It also framed a two-fold theory of women’s organizing: it delineated one platform for women fighting imperialism within colonized countries, and another platform for women fighting imperialism within aggressor nations. This transnational feminism supported an explicitly pro-socialist vision for the future.